Bruce Wagner - I Met Someone

She’d been gone almost five months. Having her back— this version — was unbearable on so many levels. The kink and the anguish, the madness of it, were mitigated by the whirlwind of professionals who came and went, prosecuting Aurora’s hurlyburly schedule with military precision. Half of the activities focused on repetitive movement and relearning the basics — grasping and holding silverware, drinking from cups, brushing teeth, toilet training — while the other half was taken up by the honing of cognitive skills: word recognition and pronunciation and the expression of wants and needs. She was prone to random outbursts of laughter and tears (the doctors called it PBA, for Pseudobulbar Affect). She took medication for seizures but had them anyway, frightening Dusty, who made certain her daughter would never be alone. Progress was impossible to gauge, though once or twice a week there was a much ballyhooed “miracle,” e.g., she’d appear to get the obscure humor in a subtle remark of Jeremy’s or be caught on a nanny cam, dancing to Michael Jackson with a carefree elegance reminiscent of her old self. Yet such moments were always countered by discouraging setbacks. The caregivers said it was a marathon, not a sprint, and their clichés comforted. They insisted that Aurora was doing incredibly well but Dusty didn’t know what to believe. “It’s a process,” they told her. “You’re in recovery too, you know.”

Elise hadn’t brought up Bloodthrone 2 again but Dusty started thinking it might be good to go back to work. She was conflicted, though, about the selfishness of that impulse, torn between the notion of what she did and didn’t deserve. (Ginevra, whom she’d resumed Skyping, encouraged her to “dip your toe.”) But how could she? How could she indulge in something as frivolous as acting , that gave her so much pleasure? What right did she have to experience those movie-set feelings of camaraderie, jubilance, fulfillment? Those erotic feelings… how could she, while Aurora convulsed or cried out in physical, psychic, and spiritual pain? Dusty fantasized about leasing that cottage in the Cotswolds… why not? Maybe Aurora would be well enough to make the journey. And if she weren’t, she’d bring her anyway , because what the fuck difference would it make? What difference did it make what part of the world they were in, as long as her baby was doing all the things she needed, to heal? It’s not like there aren’t doctors, speech therapists, and P.T. folks in the U.K. They’re probably even better at it in Europe… what if Aurora thrived over there, if she straight-up bloomed?

As the house settled into a routine, the actress felt a tenuous balance return. Jeremy half joked, “I think your sense of humor might be coming back — in a minimal way.” The trick was never to have a chink in the support system. If a practitioner wasn’t pulling their weight, they were immediately fired and replaced. It was like running a small corporation; she’d always excelled at overseeing the practical minutiae that governed the ease and necessities of everyday life. They spent weekends at the Carpinteria love shack because the beach there was private (though security still kept a watchful eye for drones and seaworthy paparazzi) and she believed it essential that Aurora experience the ocean. When she nervously waded in for the first time, squealing and running from the waves with primal delight, Dusty bawled. They built sandcastles and threw mud pies at each other and barbecued on the sand.

Fireworks and tiki torches…

The couple was swamped by well-wishers. Dusty hired a service to sort the thousands of letters that arrived through agency, law firm, and management — vowing to answer them all. She got the most amazing orchids “from your Bartok Family,” with a heartfelt note signed by the chairman, Dominic, the Gertrude, and the Missoni. George and Amal sent boxes of the chocolate truffles Leggy fell in love with when they spent part of their honeymoon in Lake Como. Tom Ford and his husband, Richard, had a huge assortment of Legos delivered from London (the therapists said they were an excellent tool for hand-eye coordination)— so thoughtful… she got the most touching call from Liam. She had dinner with Natasha a week before her death, and while he didn’t speak of her directly, Liam’s former wife wove through his words of consolation like a golden thread.

Dusty made the decision not to look at emails or listen to phone messages for a while. (If anything was urgent, her assistant would let her know.) Friends wanted to visit Allegra but she wouldn’t allow it. Not even Patrice the hairdresser, whom her daughter adored. Dusty wondered if she was doing the right thing; there were so many people that loved Allegra, and who she loved back. It might have been beneficial for her to interact, but in the end, Dusty went with her gut. Only Jeremy, Elise, and Livia had backstage passes — though she did enjoy inviting the kids and grandkids of caregivers over for picnics and beach days. Aurora was great around children but somewhere along the line had grown fearful of dogs. ( Allegra was a total dog person.) Angie Dickinson was one of the few exceptions to the visitor rule. She’d known Angie for years. Her daughter had been challenged from birth in ways now reminding Dusty of her own; watching them, back in the nineties, was something she’d never forgotten. She had been honored to bear witness to the fierce grace of Angie’s patience and devotion, her unconditional mother love.

Aurora called everyone “Mama.” One of the aides said, “But she knows you’re the only ‘Mama.’ When you’re not here, she likes to call us that.” Other helpers said the same, and while Dusty knew they meant well, the little campaign being waged on behalf of her primacy embarrassed her. Though in time, when her daughter cried out in fear, it was Dusty who soothed her and no one else. That was an observable fact.

They watched movies in the plush home theater. When they saw one of Dusty’s, Aurora laughed in delight, pointing to the image on the screen and then to her mother. They saw Frozen and Aurora knew the song perfectly, singing along like they used to—

Let it go, let it go

I am one with the wind and sky!

Let it go, let it go

You’ll never see me cry!

Sometimes, overcome by medication and mangled circuitry, Aurora fell asleep without warning, say, smack in the middle of the noisiest, most outrageous scene of her favorite, Mad Max: Fury Road . She’d lean her head on Dusty’s shoulder, and begin to snore; her mother would lower the volume and stare at her baby while the projector threw images onto Aurora’s features, to create a living metaphor of the actress’s colliding worlds — a pietà of film, fame, and blood, of fractured family regained.

—

It was a good day. More IATSE checks arrived and someone who saw a late-night rerun of Dr. Wrigley offered to anonymously pay the debt on one of their credit cards—$27,000.

Derek had been staying in Tristen’s room but crawled into Larissa’s bed around midnight and fell right to sleep. She woke up.

It’d been a few weeks since she thought of her — her son had been dead only a few days when she heard that Allegra tried to kill herself. Larissa was already out of her mind with grief and her imagination ran wild; she became convinced she was responsible for the botched suicide. She knew Allegra had “broken up” with her out of guilt, and assumed she must have finally told her wife of their dalliance. Dusty was probably so pissed that she threatened divorce, or even insisted on it, which was why Allegra did what she did.